Sarcoma

Treatment for sarcoma often involves surgery to remove the cancer. Other treatments for sarcoma may include radiation therapy, ablation therapy and treatment with medicines. Medicines that help treat sarcoma include chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy.

Which treatments are best for you will depend on the type of sarcoma you have. Your treatment options also might depend on where the cancer is in your body, how fast it’s growing and whether it has spread to other parts of your body.

Surgery

The goal of surgery for sarcoma is to remove all the cancer cells. Sometimes surgeons need to remove a limb, such as an arm or a leg, to get all the cancer. This is called amputation. But surgeons try to save the limb when they can.

Sometimes surgeons can’t remove all the cancer without hurting nearby nerves or organs. Then surgeons work to remove as much of the sarcoma as they can.

Radiation therapy

Radiation therapy treats cancer with powerful energy beams. The energy can come from X-rays, protons or other sources.

For sarcoma, you might have radiation therapy before, during or after surgery to remove the cancer.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy treats cancer with strong medicines. Some types of sarcoma are more likely to respond to chemotherapy treatment than are others. Healthcare professionals might use chemotherapy before or after surgery. It also can help treat sarcoma that grows large or spreads to other parts of the body.

Targeted therapy

Targeted therapy for cancer is a treatment that uses medicines that attack specific chemicals in the cancer cells. By blocking these chemicals, targeted treatments can cause cancer cells to die.

Your healthcare professional may have your sarcoma cells tested to see if they are likely to respond to targeted therapy medicines. Targeted therapy may treat certain types of sarcoma. It might be used if the cancer comes back or spreads.

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy for cancer is a treatment with medicine that helps the body’s immune system kill cancer cells. The immune system fights off diseases by attacking germs and other cells that shouldn’t be in the body. Cancer cells survive by hiding from the immune system. Immunotherapy helps the immune system cells find and kill the cancer cells.

Tests can show if a sarcoma is likely to respond to immunotherapy. This treatment might help control a sarcoma that has spread to other parts of the body.

Ablation therapy

Ablation is a procedure that applies treatment directly to the cancer cells to harm them. Some types of ablation apply energy to the cancer cells that causes them to heat up. Procedures that do this include radiofrequency ablation and microwave ablation.

Using extreme cold to harm the cancer cells is called cryoablation. Sometimes ablation involves using alcohol to harm the cancer cells.

Ablation might be used to treat sarcoma when surgery isn’t an option. It also might be used when the cancer spreads to other parts of the body.